tamilnaduedufandomcom-20200214-history
Funding Issues
Underfunding to Primary Education and Overfunding to College Data indicate that for public schools in Tamil Nadu, primary education is underfunded, while there tends to be excess money available for college level education. This condition creates a domino effect and enrollment at institutions of higher learning are being impacted. The low quality of education and dearth of teachers at the primary level are the effects brought about by a lack of funding for primary education. Children uneducated at the primary level will not go on to college, in turn curbing enrollment rates at institutions of higher learning. India has made great strides in improving its education system. For primary education, the attendance rate has been increased and literacy rates have expanded, but most of the progress is still focused on higher education [1]. There remains a vast gap between levels of funding for primary education and college. The right to education in India is one of the many supply driven policies that are popular in many countries [5] . In the 1990s and early 2000s, the government of India has worked to expand and improve the foundation of elementary education. More specifically, the New Education Policy of 1986 was formally introduced. It recognized the scarce investments on the education front, especially in the elementary sector. One of its main goals was to increase education expenditures to at least 6% of their gross domestic product. The state of Tamil Nadu has one of the highest primary completion rates [2] . While enrollment rates in elementary school were at a high in 2009 at ninety-five percent, the drop out rate was in turn reported at forty-nine percent. This further implies that there are major inequalities in primary school completion to middle school transition rates all the way to college. These inequalities are related to class, caste and minority status. For example, students who do not complete primary school are deemed a characteristic of the poor and ‘socially disadvantaged.’ On the other side, statistics disproportionally report that children who go on to attain higher levels of education are commonly from the upper to middle classes in urban areas [4] . Private education and college funding benefit those with higher incomes. Due to economic and social disparities, the fact that free education is available does not ensure that all children are receiving the same quality. Also, according to Banerjee and Duflo parents tend to believe that the returns to primary education are much lower than the returns to higher education 5. This could also be an answer in determining why there is such a large gap in funding between primary and higher education. Over the past two decades funding for primary education has been rising, but public expenditures on education still remains at less than four percent of GDP, not meeting the six percent goal. This level is far below the amount that is needed to provide universal elementary education and to meet the growing demand. The state continues to be the main source of funds for education and in 2009, approximately eighty percent of students enrolled at the primary level were state funded 4. India’s higher education sector is the third largest in the world, following China and the United States. India’s higher education sector has seen accelerated growth. Only about one third of the lower socioeconomic group is enrolled in college. This is most likely due to the lake of funding and quality available to the lower socioeconomic rural areas [3] . The government is working in conjunction with other humanitarian groups to fix this problem in hopes that more citizens will have access to India's higher education sector. 1. World Bank. "Education in India." India. The World Bank. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. 5. Banerjee, Abhijit, and Esther Duflo. "Teaching the Book | Poor Economics." Homepage | Poor Economics. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.